1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing hydrocarbons and more particularly it relates to a process of producing hydrocarbons having about 10 to 50 carbon atoms by thermally decomposing a synthetic polyisoprene rubber. The invention further relates to a process for producing saturated hydrocarbons, in particular squalane-like saturated hydrocarbons having 25 to 35 carbon atoms, comprising catalytically reducing the hydrocarbons thus obtained from the synthetic polyisoprene rubber.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A synthetic polyisoprene rubber is a synthetic rubber similar to a natural rubber and having 92 to 97% cis-type double bonds obtained by polymerizing isoprene in the presence of a Ziegler type catalyst or a lithium-type catalyst and recently such a rubber has become commercially available easily and at a low cost.
However, it is quite difficult economically to obtain low-polymer hydrocarbons by the oligomerization of isoprene. Therefore, various investigations have been made on the thermal decomposition of easily available synthetic polyisoprene rubber for the purpose of producing low-polymer hydrocarbons and as the results it has been discovered that different from natural rubbers, synthetic polyisoprene rubber provides low-polymer hydrocarbons, in particular hydrocarbons having about 10 to 50 carbon atoms with quite a high yield by the thermal decomposition of synthetic polyisoprene rubber.
Furthermore, by continuing the investigations, it has also been discovered that squalane-like saturated hydrocarbons having about 25 to 35 carbon atoms can be also obtained by catalytically reducing the hydrocarbons obtained from the synthetic polyisoprene rubber.